You epitomise all that is seriously wrong with America currently & it`s alienation by the World = Obsessive Self-Congratulation, Inability to grasp Reality, Ignorance of World Affairs & Geography & Attempted re-writing of History for Self-Agrandisement.
Thank God you`re a minority in that Country, we can only hope for your Enlightenment in the Future..F

Yes you are, can't knock it. Just that you are out of sync with the rest of the world and always getting the wrong end of the stick and therefore being used and abused and constantly morally and emotionally blackmailed.

My dear gest-iomwsno
Do try and get a sense of humor, will you? The persons that display horrid ignorance are the ones that constantly accuse others of ignorance simply because they differ from their own views, my experience with such people has been that they lead very dissatisfied, lonely, dreary, biter, maladjusted, discontent and dysfunctional life's, throwing insults at others aimlessly because their intellect does not allow for much more or ranting about something to try and silence those things that their limited minds can not comprehend or concepts that their brains have not been conditioned to assimilate.
I is my sincerest hope that you do not fall under this category of human being!!!!

Romney has done it.His comments in London has no doubt united the people of the United Kingdom.His next comments in Israel may unite the people of the entire middle eastern countries including Iran to fight against their common enemy Israel.God bless America and the world.

Yes, this guy is quite absurd. He should not have left the USA - I am sure that he will lose votes, based on his performance in the UK and Israel. Outsiders like me will never quite understand why he has chosen to make aggressive remarks while he was in Israel. A more mature politician would have been talking about the need for regional peace, etc. By now the American public should be sick and tired about failed military interventions in Asia. While Obama is trying to bring US troops back home, this guy wants to start another war in the Middle East. A very strange foreign policy. It is not surprising that with a zig zag foreign policy, nobody in Asia wants to be a US ally.

L6QjhvJGVk wrote: I am sure that he will lose votes, based on his performance in the UK and Israel.
---------------------------------------------------------------
You underestimate the stupidity of my countrymen. Remember, W Bush won the popular vote in 2004 after allowing the greatest breech of national security since Pearl Harbor and after starting a war in the wrong country as punishment for that breech.

I question whether he will lose any votes in the US. Maybe a few, but overall those who care about these kind of things likely are already planning to vote for Obama and those who are going to vote for the likes of Romney don't care about diplomatic niceties, anyway.

Good point. I can understand that within the USA the economy is a major issue. However, looking forward, a hawkish right-wing foreign policy will not allow an economic recovery to take place. Looking at the USA from the outside, it seems that Clinton left America with a budget surplus which was converted into a huge deficit by Bush. Romney comes across as a low-IQ version of Bush. Being a Mormon, I presume that he does not drink. Perhaps a couple of glasses of wine before each speech might help??!!

I don't believe for a second that Romney is dumb or has a low IQ. In my view there are a couple of things:

1) He is in a party where the agenda is being set right now by a lot of people with extreme views who see the world in black and white. I think Romney sees the greys and nuances but the rest of the party won't allow that kind of thinking. He's like a square peg in a round hole.

2) Being a successful business person may (or, more likely, may not) have anything to do with being a successful president. Obviously, the entire foreign relations thing is completely, well, foreign, to a CEO. The constraints the president is under that were actually put there as constraints on purpose by the Constitution (Congress and the Judiciary) have few or no real comparable counterparts in the business world.

I suppose the experience of a business person is not necessarily related at all to how well a person may do as president. George Bush seems, in retrospect if not at the time, to have had a difficult time as president and he had his MBA from Harvard same as Romney.

The combined IQ of Bush and Romney is probably below the normal room temperature.If elected,Romney will be no match for either Putin or his Chinese Opponent.He will lead America to an unknown destination.

I owe this thread an apology. My wife was looking over my shoulder as I replied to the many of you supporting your President, Mssr Obama. Wife: "Your replies are becoming too sharp and are starting cut more than inform."
Yikes.
My humble apologies to this forum. I shall desist in cutting remarks and try to steer a course better guided by integrity, character and honor, whatever the issue or replies.
Thank you.
Esteban Café

"We are holding an Olympic games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course, it's easier if you hold an Olympic games in the middle of nowhere."
(UK PM's tart response to Dear Mitt)

Dear Mitt,
I guess, if you had the task of running a summer Olympics in Bronx Park and its urban surrounds, you might have a better understanding of problematics and scale. But at least you could call on an army of Bronx locals for security; they would be, arguably, more amenable than your Homeland Security.

Or perhaps if you had run an Olympics in New Orleans you could have contributed to a rebuilding program that just never seems to happen for the poor displaced.

No, Mitt,
if you want advice on how to run a Games in a dense urban megacity, in a zone needing serious regeneration, then do have the humility to ask.
And, should you make it to the White House, you may find there are other areas where we can help your arguably limited international outlook.

I think you should be proud of having the Olympics, national pride and all but Romney is in a postion to offer criticism. He ran a successful winter games. He was asked a question and was honest in his answer. Point in fact is that he was correct and the british media are pounding the same points. I do think he should have been a little more polite about his response.

Honestly over here in the states we want the games to go well, we love watching them. The empty seats I have to say is quite an embarassment. All those empty seats and they still want to charge 450 pounds, Egad! I hope they rectify that and get the locals more involved.

PF ( Americans Love Britain?)
And So They Should!, If any Nation lends credence to your meagre 250 years of recent history it is Britain with her 11,000 years of illustrious precedence & continuing selfless indulgence to an Ungrateful & Bragging Brat.
It is now time that America as a Nation Politic grew up,...Learnt the meaning of Respect, Nurtured a sense of`give & take` Humour, Stopped screwing the World with `sub-prime`Scams etc. & Cancelled its thinly-disguised plans to forge an 18th century-styled Empire.
America has few Real Friends,but many crawling Sychophants, learn to differentiate between the two, You`ve needed the former in the Past,you will need them even more in the Future...F

Then again,I might not!, What I have is an incisive view on the shallowness of US foreign policy & it`s high inventory of `Political Twats per Capita` compared to it`s millions of good,everyday, Citizens whom we admire & respect.
Britain had similiar probs with Blair/Brown & the criminally inept Labour Government, thank Christ they`re resigned to dark history & this Nation`s eternal loathing.
Let`s hope that America finally recognises it`s Clowns for what they are & eventually dumps them ...F

For all of you intellectual lightweights on here who seem to have a passion for bashing Romney, the rich, freedom and markets, try learning something about reality and get out of your Progressive fantasies.

That's like saying 'Humans can do no wrong.' Do you know anyone who believes that? I don't. Markets are human institutions and are subject to all the corruption and malfeasance that politicians and government officials are subject to, though there is a difference that makes all the difference and gives each predominance in their area and never the twain shall meet. I leave it to you to figure out what those domains are and why they differ and what difference that makes.

"Mr. Romney does seem out-of-place in politics. It's hard to tell if he's a brilliant, nice businessman trying to be a politician with good intentions or brilliant, cut throat businessman, poor politician and simply running for President to protect his wealth. Something feels disingenuous."
Richard Michael Abraham
Founder
The REDI Foundationwww.redii.org

There seem to be a lot of people on this forum with national hangups of one sort of another. And here was me thinking the Economist was read by people of wit and sophistication...

Romney is just another guy from the US, no more representative of the US than many other visitors. And not ever Brit who mocked him is necessarily off the mark. He's not exactly loved by many in the US either.

I agree with you. When non-Americans see Romney, they shudder to think that this guy may actually become the president. His remarks in the UK are funny, his remarks in Israel are scary, etc. The current problem in the US (and elsewhere) is unemployment - and he is an expert in down-sizing!!! And not to keen to reveal his tax returns - is he a tax evader?? Not much is said about the strange cult he belongs to - Mormon. I believe we do not have too many of them in Asia and Europe - unless I am missing something.

Perhaps this is precisely what the U.S. Needs at this time (downsize it's government and the expenditure of tax payers money on futile projects at a time of crisis). The downfall of the real estate market which is greatly responsible for many of the world economic perils at present was largely due to interference of government in the private sector and liberal laws imposed on banks to issue mortgages to people who could not afford them, a practice that began under the Carter administration in the 1970's. God knows we should have gradually downsized our own governments in Europe many years ago; here you have the results, riots in Greece, rampant discontent in France, burnings and looting in London, Spain begging the European Union and the banks for money just to barely survive. It is all very well “when the cow is fat” and gives a lot of milk but what happens when she becomes thin from too much milking, it starts giving less and you think that you are still entitled to that full glass, here you may have the option to cut back on the milk and try to fatten the cow again, no? Or well you can kill it and eat it which is what many people in desperation would do to be satisfied for a while longer but then what would they have at the end? An empty barn. Unfortunately many will think; my neighbor (who had the good sense of keeping these animals healthy) has two of these fat cows lets go and demand one, in strenuous circumstances must people will give up some of what they have to help others but again most of those who entitle themselves will just milk that cow given by the wealthy neighbor to death once more and will keep demanding until their neighbors barns are also depleted. Would you blame the wealthy neighbor for trying to same some of what he has in (offshore accounts) most of your government programs all already are carried by their contribution and that of corporations beside what is this infatuation to heavily tax the wealth of others who have rightfully made fortunes due to their abilities or inherited it from their owns families when it is even illegal under your constitution to tax. Perhaps too many people want to just retire at age 45 with out contributing (their fair share) Many of your liberal politicians are very wealthy too, some have been charged with corruption, why should you trust them with your money? Wealthy people and corporations crate work for others, according to their skills they get paid way much more than if they were in the hands of any government, when things are bad or employees do not perform well they let people go, this is the way it is since the beginning of human kind, as it should be.

(Pardon my simplistic approach of the cow but in fact it is that simple)

You must be a friend of grinell, well it does not matter read my response to her as she had a similar comment, I responded personally and also posted my answer. (full of paragraphs this time) Honestly my secretary thought she was saving space on that petit square.. so sorry.

The issue is not that Mitt Romney misspoke or said something foolish. That happens from time to time to everyone and that is easily forgivable. The issue is that he is traveling to demonstrate his diplomatic credentials and offended his host.

This is notable not because the press is jumping on it and saying it is notable, it is notable because the Prime Minister of England was offended. If Obama's gaffes offended the Prime Minister, we would have heard of it. When he offended the Prime Minister of Israel we certainly heard about it.

Why so oversensitive dear Brits?
You have been the champions since ever in the Olympic games of ranting, teasing and mocking by ridiculing other nations?
And it has been nobody else but the Brits that have been arrogantly looking down full of condescending rants and antipathy at other nations.
Just remember what you have been saying daily about the Germans:)
You called it British humour and now you were confronted with American humour:)
Americans are just outspoken and you will have to accept the opinion the next president of the United States.
Although Germans are too polite saying things as Mr. Romney said, I would say he hit the nail.

Perhaps he behaved towards the Brits a little bit as the Brits have been used towards the Germans since ever:)
But clearly the British anti-German rants we hear and see daily since over centuries usually are much stronger in comparison to Mr. Romney's comments.
Perhaps just a new experience the Brits have to make how it is being treated this way.
Germans are used to get treated by the Bits this way and can deal with it :)
Therefore you have so few German visitors at your games in London:)

Germs...You appear to suffer from the terminal condition of `Repressed Anglo-Phillia` made manifest by `Regressive Anglo-Phobia`. This is completely normal phenomena for most Europeans when they attempt to measure up to all that is Britain & her unexcelled History & Achievements. We as Britons can only sympathise with your pronounced Inferiority Complex, it`s perfectly relevant & understandable in the circumstance.

Thank you for your understanding of somebody who is explained to you in your schools as a non-human being.
I know that you are regarding Germans as a type of a being between monkey and human being:)
Anyway thank you that you understood me in my inferiority.
But in fact we Germans don't like each of at all.

May be but Germans do not miss anything if they do not understand what you call British humour.
Usually it is your everlasting jokes about the Germans :)
And in order to support your bias and stereotypes: Humour is unknown in Germany. We prefer shouting around orders all day long as you know from your daily movies and soaps about the Germans:)
Believe me Germans are even worse as you see hem in your daily movies and so better stay off from Germany.
Perhaps a good idea if you continue your anti-German movies and campaigns in your medias because keeps you off from our country.

If Mr.Romney becomes the next President of the United States it will be rather interesting for the British.
I deeply hope that the USA will get Mr. Romney as their next President.
Even in Germany he has a huge support for his clear line .
Obama has shown that he is nothing but a lame duck.

Having come to the UK from Brasil, I have watched a bit of UK television during the last 6 months.
The films, etc featuring Germany (and its wars) seem to be scheduled by Sky by Murdoch, an Australian?, featuring largely US war movies and documentaries. Remarkably little seems to be from the BBC or UK terrestrial commercial channels.

The UK has occasional re-runs of classic comedy series, I understand:
''Ello,'Ello' and 'Dad's Army',
which I remember from the first time round in the last century.

These were timeless British (self-deprecating) humour, poking fun and stereotyping the English, the French and the Germans.

Stereotypes - to be successfully parodied - must be rooted in the realities of perceptions.
Perhaps this is what upsets you?

Indeed it is like an endless hurdy-gurdy and it is meanwhile nothing but boring.
I was born in the Soviet Union passed my school time and years of my time in the army in the Soviet army.
So I am indeed upset regarding the same old stereotypes I never met through all my life in the Soviet Union even when I met Russian veterans.
Hard to understand for me that most of them had an extremely high appreciation of the Germans after all the Nazi-troops did to them.
They were not treated well you can be sure.
But I never noticed or heard a trace of hatred while meeting British and American veterans in Normandy I met the quite opposite.
Especially the British were filled of the most disgusting kind of hatred I ever met in my whole life.
It was a re-union of real hatemongers.
Not even in Israel I ever met a hatemonger as you met them in Britain at every corner.
And the young British generation is educated to the most extreme hatred against Germans and their hatred is even worse as that of their grandfathers.
This makes me upset if a whole nation is educating their children from the first day of their of their life to the most extreme hatred as it has beeb now in Britain over more than 70 years.
Each day they are repeating their glorious battle of England although it is nothing but ridiculous but for them it is the most important ceremony each day in their life.
And the results are nothing but obvious if a German ever is forced to visit that strange island.
Already the immigration officers will welcome you with a series of impudent anti-Gerrman rants.
Nowhere in the world I ever have been welcomed in such an impudent and offensive way as in Britain. Each German will confirm the extremely humiliating and offensive way Germans ere welcomed n Britain.
So never a German is keen to visit Britain because everything is nothing but hateful and disgusting.
Okay if it is their humour I can deal with it but then they should enjoy their good humour without the Germans:)
Actually they see that almost no Germans are visiting Britain because all fear their impudent and extremely and offensive anti-German attitude.

English born, I have also failed to observe this German stereotype.
I learned German, hosted in my home German schoolchildren and German university academics, and have spent the end years of my career working with Germans within a German company.

Perhaps stereotypes mirror society's more idiosyncratic features .... the English upper class, the East End 'wide-boy', the Heidelberg scar, the sexy Parisienne, the Aryan US crew-cut ...

No, the reason the German tourists don't come to the UK because their towels get soaked on 'their' deck-chairs ;-)

Amusing an respect:)
But I hope all your stereotypes about the bunch of drunkards and huns have been fulfilled?
The British are that much satisfied looking down at the Germans condescendingly as they were looking dow at the inferior race of Indian boys.
You are educated treating everybody who is not English this way and it is always a pleasure meeting one of you.
Britain seems to me the very best place for real German masochists.
For German masochists Britain is a real paradise.
Anyway you seem to be a little bit different by hosting inferior being s who wee nothing but crappy German children.
I know that German beings are not regarded after the British doctrine as human beings.
So probably you were hosting something between monkeys and human being- and tat is German after your philosophy:)
Each German I met in Britain had the very same feeling that you are regarding us as an extremely underdeveloped race of human beings.
Thank you for the racism Germans meet every day everywhere in your racist paradise.
So they do not need your sun chairs.
Germans stay at home.

On the other side, I will much aprecite if you can help me get in touch or put me through with German automotive OEM's. Of course - in win-win basis for mutual benefit. You know how it goes all over the world, through personal contacts and networking.
I have something special to offer for them in product design and development, as am engineering support provider. May we go along and proceed? You can find my contacts and my XING and/or Linkedin accounts. Many thanks in advance.

Germ....& PF....,I have nothing but respect for your celebrated politicians, whilst Romney epitomises all the brilliant statesmanship, oratory & profound understanding of the World, rivalling even the fabled George Bush Mark2.
So the easy-going,lovable,humorous,considerate,caring style of Murk-all encapsulates all the wonderful warm traits of the German psyche.
A humble Briton can only stand in awe in such Company..F

Very well done Mr. Romney.
Hope you will become President of the USA.
The Brits need lessons of this type.
Having been used teasing and mocking in their arrogant attitude other nations over centuries, these snooty people just got a little taste how it feels being humiliated.
Regarding other nations and nationalities as nothing but crap it is now the British to accept how an American from a superior nation is looking down on them.
German-bashing as one o the most important basics of British culture now seem,s to be more amusing.
Perhaps h next weeks the British will start a new anti-German campaign as a revenge for heir humiliation:)
But indeed Mr. Romney is nothing but right what he said about the Brits.
So very well done:)
The SUN and other medias will have to find new rants against their best scapegoats who have been since ever the Germans:)

I am no American so I can say nothing about your remark.
I am just a bloody inferior hun living in the 3rd world country of Germany.
So you are barking up the wrong tree.
Tell it to your American cousins:)

Where is the problem being American?
Just forget about your German rots:)
You are living in America and that is okay for me.
I for myself will never forget my Russian roots and therefore I am very often in Russia and I never want to forget this wonderful language:)

Slightly less than brilliant Romney comments illustrate his intellectual whereabouts. Ironically, related to economic management of the country, he is preferred by a small US majority margin over current president Obama. In his display of personal conduct blunders in foreign contacts, it’s a bit of a concern that he might get elected as the next American president. In America that kind of preoccupation is less likely to exist.

True buffoonery lies in an elected official's actions, as opposed to mere missteps on the minefield of idioms confronting any American visitor. Obama has displayed his share of quirky, inappropriate actions whilst visiting Britain, and before the Queen: he and Biden are buffoonish, but the press looks the other way.

After Mr. Romney completes his visit to the United Kingdom, he will be on his way to another friendly, albiet the 'US-dependent' friendly nation of israel. I wonder if Mr Romney who is a Bishop of the 'Church of Latter Day Saints' will attempt to baptise his friend, of their Boston business days, the prime minister of israel!!!

He has done worse than that. He has encouraged Israel's belligerent (and racist) prime minister to attack Iran. Mr. Romney appears to be keen to do another Bush-style intervention in Asia. Strange - just after the complete failure in Iraq and Afghanistan!!!

Iraq and Afghanistan was a complete failure. Here in Qatar, the US is holding secret talks with the Taliban. Lots of us have seen them coming to the so-called "secret location" - the 5th floor of an apartment block. These are the guys that were supposed to have been defeated!!!

What fun this has all been! Few things are as raucous as a family quarrel and the Romney/Olympics imbroglio has been like watching two brothers (let us call them John Bull and Uncle Sam) argue over who is more devoted to Dear Old Mum! ("I know you helped her with taxes but which of us, after all, showed up every afternoon for tea without fail? Tell me that!")

Americans are a bit dense in their indignant response to English criticisms of Mr. Romney. Few of us, after all, appreciate, or even realize, the firm foundation of moral integrity that undergirds British reporting nor the Herculean labors of Messrs. Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch, or even Rebekah Brooks, that were required to hoist English journalism to its current lofty pinnacle.

Mr. Romney's gauche remarks on the Olympics showed the bumptious American Abroad at his fabled worst. If not the Ugly American, Mr. Romney was certainly the Presumptuous America, taking it upon himself to offer advice on an immensely complex undertaking while fortified by nothing more than arrogance bred from his experience in overseeing recent and successful Olympic Games.

Americans responded to the typical British understatement in assessing Romney's remarks with an orgy of abuse directed, mainly, at English dental care. Some of their remarks even degenerated to the level of "So's your Old Man!"

We can not blame our British cousins for defending themselves by casting asparagus on Mr. Romney's qualification as a politician. They are, doubtless, baffled by, and skeptical of, the resume of a politician who governed, albeit to popular acclaim, for many years in a state with such suspect and off-putting municipalities as Ipswich, Boston, Leicester, Leominster, Woburn and Worcester!

American politicians are, by British standards, almost inarticulate. There is little in American political rhetoric that rise to the polished oratory of a John Profumo or Arthur Scargill. Those of us (and I am one) old enough to remember Mr. Attlee's soaring peorations must, as Yanks, accept that the Brits speak with a panache of which we seem incapable. There is little, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. F.D. Roosevelt aside, in American political thought or writing that passes muster beyond the commonplace.

All in all, a most entertaining brouhaha over nothing, this trip of Mr. Romney's to England, and one that I will be sorry to see end. Not since the initial productions of "No Sex, Please, We're British" or "Noises Off" has there been anything quite so droll as the screeches of "patriots" in full fig on both sides of the Pond.